Students of Orissa have always been abused by the popular media, especially those studying in private Engineering Colleges and the picture that anyone external to these students get is a view that they are, “bade baap ke bigde hue aulaad” (spoilt children of rich people). On the 20th of April, Institute of Technical Education and Research, Bhubaneshwar, saw something that can be said to be one of the first concerted protest against the impositions of the institutional bureaucracy on the second year students of the college (B.Tech Programme). Sidharth Mohapatra, one of the protestors shares his experience of how it all began and what all happened. The following are in his words.
On the 19th of April, at around 5 p.m. there was a notice on the notice board where the names of students having shortage of attendance and the dates for examinations were given. I had 60% attendance in every subject and expected that I won’t be having any problems of being unable to attend the semesters. But, to my surprise, one of my friends, Raunak Raj, called me up and said that I had attendance shortage in all six subjects that I was to appear in the semesters. At that time I was with one of my friends. We immediately decided to go to college and reached there at about 6. There was a crowd gathered in college and no one was bothered about whether anyone got attendance shortages or not; rather, the question that everyone was asking everyone else, “In how many subjects did you get a shortage of attendance.” There were also jokes as to how the college screwed us. Initially I didn’t want to think any longer about the issue as I wanted to be calm – I thought nothing could be done. I went to my place and picked up a novel to divert my mind from the trouble that lay ahead. Sometime later, I got an SMS from a friend which read, “God curse ITER…Friends, we are heading for a strike tomorrow against the atrocities of the institute regarding attendance problem and exam schedules. So, we expect cordial support from all my friends to support the strike wholeheartedly and reach college gate by 12p.m. Please send this to everyone you know to help the needy.” My first reaction was something like, analyzing the language and finding flaws in it, and the whole text appeared ridicules to me. Then I moved on with my novel. Then I got a call from one of my friends called Anshu who asked me to come to the college gate at 12p.m. and asked me to bring as many people I could. I said yes and then I thought of forwarding the SMS I had received to few friends. I forwarded it to three to four friends. I got reply SMSs instantly with questions like, ‘where exactly?’ ‘how many?,’ etc. Now let me tell you something about myself. This had happened to me before in the 1st year and I was really irritated. I was thinking of dropping out from college. I write poetry and thought I better do that. My parents forced me to stay. Now, moving back to where we were, I called Raunak Raj and started chatting about why the college was upto such things. We discussed we are not at all comfortable with what the college is famous for, namely, discipline. Then the old thought surfaced in my mind – “I should quit.” Then I thought why should I quit. I hung up with rage against college. So I wrote this new message, “guys, we are being fucked because we are lying down with legs wide open and it’s time to use our dicks to fuck them back. If you are a man, be a man and show up at 12 noon and join us in our protest against the college.” I sent the SMS to around twenty boys. I thought that this message might be very inappropriate to girls. So, I forwarded the message I received to the girls I knew. Within an hour or so at around 9:30 in the night, I was receiving the same message from friends and unknown numbers along with eight other messages from friends and unknown numbers. Then I called Pratik Mohapatra who sounded really angry. I found out, he, along with another of his friends, started this SMS thing. We abused the college and we thought it was all because of money that the college does this thing. Then we were talking about problems we might have to face with family when they came to know about what happened. Ultimately we decided to go on a ‘do or die’ move. Then I called a friend of my college after talking to whom, I stopped being impulsive and got down to thinking. Something that this friend was able to explain was that how the compulsory attendance was completely absurd. I hung up and started thinking again. Then I called Pratik again and told him that we needed to organize ourselves. I was hyped that night and on my bed, lying down, I was thinking “tomorrow was the day.” I took up the novel again and was asleep by about 2:30a.m. When I woke up at about in the morning, the passion had all evaporated and I wanted to go back to sleep. Then Pratik called again and I was casual about it. I went to college in a tranquil mood. When I reached there Pratik Mohapatra was the only guy standing there. We were supposed to have at least 500 students. One problem that had taken place earlier was that in our SMSs we had given different places to meet. We did not know where anyone else might be. That might have been a reason why we were alone there. Then we called people and came to know that some students had their tests and so they would show up at 12 as exactly decided. Some of the students had gone to make fake medical certificates, the name of the source I can’t disclose because that would lead to problems we might face in future. They would return after getting them and join us. After about half an hour, there were five of us standing in front of the college expecting more company when Rahul(name changed), came and informed that there were students inside who were awaiting us. We went in front of the Academic Block of our college from where we expected more students to come out. In an hour we were about sixty only and in rage we decided to go with whatever strength we had. We went to the Dean’s Office where we were not allowed to enter. We started shouting and abusing the institute.
Students protesting in front of college administration
After some time Prof. B.K. Sarap, Deputy Chairman of our institute showed up and said that we could talk. We agreed, though not instantly. There were also about fifteen girls accompanying us though their main grievance was regarding examination rescheduling. Prof. Sarap said: “give me your demands in written. Then I’ll see what can be done.” We wrote an application where we put down our two demands: cut-off of a minimum attendance should be reduced and, exams should be properly rescheduled with gaps between consecutive exams. One of the girls, who wanted rescheduling threw up that there was a rule in UGC that exam dates are to be announced fifteen days before the commencement of exams. We were all in the peak of our zeal then. While writing the application, we were sixty but the number of signatories became hundred and ninety-eight. Two of us, including me, were sent to submit the application. We were stopped by the guards. I was furious at him and called my friends back who came back yelling. Prof. Sarap came to us and asked for the application. We handed it over to him. We then had a conversation with him. Then, finally he agreed to reschedule the exams and see to it that minimum students get an attendance shortage. There were cries of joy and the crowd dispersed.
Awesome article. Love your style of writing.
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